Page 78 of Go Find Less

“Is the screaming still an option?” she says against my lips, and I pull back to look at her, not quite sure I’ve heard her correctly. But when I can see her face, her bottom lip is tugged between her teeth, and she’s waiting for my answer. Wordlessly, I hold my hand out to her, and pull her down the hall and into my bedroom.

It hits me when we walk in how sterile my room is compared to hers. My whole house, really. Her space is flooded with memories and reminders of the people and things she loves. Mine is accented with chrome and full of white space. I can tell that she notices, too, as she toggles her head from side to side, taking in the lack of personal touches and abundance of square, clean lines.

“Big fan of monochrome, I see?” she asks, the fingers of her hand not held by mine brushing the edge of the entry table, which houses just my charging station for my phone. It used to sit there at night - until I went to bed texting the woman holding my hand. She looks around at the gray upholstered bed, the deep charcoal curtains, the white square side tables with matching chrome lamps. Comparatively, my home looks like it’s staged and ready to sell. I close the door softly behind us. Then, her eyes zero in on the pop of yellow sitting on the dresser on the wall, feet away from the end of my bed.

“Is that…” She lets go of my hand, which almost makes me scowl, and takes a tentative step toward the space, her stocking clad feet barely making a sound across the dark wood. She picks up the tape measure in her hand, and turns it over, no doubt seeing Carla’s name written in permanent marker. Slowly, her lips turn up in a mischievous smile. “Is this what you look at before you go to sleep?” she asks quietly, and then looks up just in time to see heat flaring into my face.

“I’ve been meaning to give it back.”

“She got a new one to hang some art last week,” Piper answers with a shrug, setting the tool back down on the dresser. She turns back toward me, sidling up to my chest and placing both her hands on the smooth fabric of my shirt, running her fingers over it as she looks up at me. “ButFitzwilliam,” she starts, and a sound involuntarily leaves the back of my throat. Even I can’t tell whether it’s because I hate hearing her call me that - or because I love it. “I never pegged you for the romantic.”

“There we go assuming again.” I let my hands fall to her hips, accentuated by the corset or whatever this is she’s wearing over her dress, and her eyes flit down for just a moment before she turns in my arms. When she pulls her hair off to one shoulder, she looks at me over the other, batting her long lashes in a way I know is immediately for my benefit.

Alright, so we were playing that game. She wasn’t going to hear me complain.

“Can you help me?” She nods down to the lacing across her back.

“How did you get into it?” I ask. She blinks up at me as if to saydon’t ask stupid questions.“Uh, right, shutting up and undressing you.” I bite my lips and close my eyes momentarily, wishing I could take back that last bit, but my hands slide up from her hips to tangle in the black silken ribbon lacing up her spine. With one pull on the end of the ribbon and a yank of the middle apart, it loosens. She sighs.

“Much better.” I hold her arm to help her balance while she shimmies it down over her hips to the floor, but when she moves to stand and turn, I find her waist and hold her back to my chest. Her head turns toward me, just slightly, but I don’t give her the chance to ask what I’m doing before I brush her hair back over one shoulder and lean down, brushing a kiss along the exposed skin.

When she shudders against me, I know I’m a goner.

Chapter 29

Fitz

Onehandaroundherwaist, I lace the other under her arm and grip her shoulder from the front, holding her against me tightly while I nip at her neck. Her fingers wrap around my own in both spots, squeezing as if it’s the only way she can communicate.

The little moan she makes when I reach the spot just behind her earlobe makes my cock twitch against her, and I know she’s felt it because her jaw moves as she smiles broadly.

“Do you like feeling what you do to me?” I ask in a low whisper, and she nods wordlessly, using one hand to pull my face down until her lips meet mine. I step forward and she moves with me, pushing the front of her hips into the dresser and letting my arousal grind against her ass while our lips tangle and her hand pulls at the hair at the base of my neck.

After a minute she manages to twist in my arms, and, mouth still on mine, she clumsily undoes the buttons on my shirt, laughing against me as she fumbles. She throws it open and I let it fall to the floor, letting go of her for just a moment to pull my undershirt over my head too.

She freezes momentarily, taking in my naked torso, her eyes stopping for a millisecond on the bulge very, very visible through my pants, and her mouth tilts up again. Turning half way, Piper lifts her hair up, and my fingers find her zipper and pull, carefully watching every inch of skin that becomes exposed down her back, paying special attention to the black lace bra peeking out.

When she turns back around to wiggle out of the dress, I step back, not noticing when I’ve gone too far until my legs hit the back of the bed. At the same time her dress falls to the floor, I lose my balance, stumbling back onto the end of my bed with a thud.

I feel my breath hitch, less than hear it, because my blood is pumping so loudly through my head I don’t hear anything else. My eyes scan from her face, where something apprehensive flashes across her features, and then down her long neck, to the pearls she’s still wearing. Her tan skin is interrupted only by the black lace bra that hugs at the swell of her breasts. It fits her perfectly, but I’d expected no less. That tattoo I’d glimpsed the other day has several friends, I discover, one at her bra line on the other side of her stomach that says something I can’t make out from here, and another floral piece peeking from the top of her underwear on the other side.

Black and lacy too, they stretch across her hips and hug every curve just right. And fucking hell, she’s wearing a garter belt, matching the rest of the set, that’s holding up the pair of pink tights I’ve been trying to keep my eyes off of all night. Where they attach to the top of the tights, there are little black bows that match the one perfectly nestled between her breasts.

Like a present. A Piper present, wrapped in black lace and trying to kill me, because she is doing just that. Trying to kill me.

Killing me with her long legs as she stretches one out in front of her, leaning against the dresser and putting her hands on the edge to steady herself, eying me right back. Killing me with the way her cleavage pushes together as she puts her weight on her arms, shoulders jutting toward her ears. Killing me with the way her teeth tug at her lip again, and her nostrils flair, just slightly, as her quick breaths make the tendrils of hair falling across her chest shake.

She is breathtakingly gorgeous, and I wish I could snap a mental photo of her just to remind myself how incredibly fucking stupid I was to let anyone treat this woman like anything less than she deserved. Like anything less than perfect.

Piper

I give it a few seconds before finally trying to regain Fitz’s attention, nodding toward where he fell at the end of the bed.

“Is my lack of coordination finally rubbing off on you?” I realize what I’ve said the second it leaves my mouth, and I close my eyes momentarily in embarrassment. I hear the breath of his short laugh, and when I open them again, the look on his face has stayed the same, unfazed.

For a second, I really think he’s going to leap across the room and ruin my favorite set of lingerie. I’m not sure, at this point, with the way heat is pooling between my legs and my heart is thudding in my chest, that I would be entirely opposed to the idea. I can make more, right?

No. I shake the idea out of my head. This is not a smutty scene in some dark fantasy romance where the beastly hunk of a love interest rips off yet another good pair of underthings. This is real life, and in real life my ass and my boobs are being held up by $75 worth of lace and spandex that I will be incredibly upset if damaged. It just wouldn’t be the end of the world, is all I’m saying.

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